Marketing In The Moment: Five Ways To Target Millennials

It has never been more important for brands to market in the moment. The evolution of digital devices (tablets, smartphones) and social channels (Twitter, Reddit—take your pick) has made it essential for brands to create real-time content and deliver it with impact.

Marketing has evolved into a more complex discipline than ever with even higher demands being placed on marketers. Marketers are feeling more pressure to stay relevant, which is especially true when looking to reach Millennials.

Last year 49 million Millennial consumers used a smartphone, with 84 percent being avid social media users, per eMarketer. Reaching this mobile/social target requires marketers to be more relevant than ever before.

So how can marketers create real-time moments that are intrinsic to their brand? How can they engage with younger consumers on a more personal level by creating content that consumers want to read and share? Below are five things to remember when targeting the Millennial:

1. Keep the conversation going or it will keep on going without you. Online conversation is transforming the entire creative process and the way organizations operate, said Disney’s Anne Sweeny and TV producer I. Marlene King in a recent Q&A in The Wall Street Journal. Conversation is constant. Organizations must pay attention to it and provide timely, instant feedback. There is no longer any other option.

2. Be willing to prepare and invest in this preparation. Investing in the necessary resources is vital to planning for big moments and engaging with younger users in real time. As it turns out, during the infamous Super Bowl XLVII blackout, Oreo employed a hefty 15-person social media team to respond to whatever happened online during the game. Oreo also planned ahead with two different versions of its tweet that went viral beforehand.

3. Assume they are watching more than one screen. Speaking of Oreo, a survey taken prior to the Super Bowl found that about 36 percent of viewers would be consulting on a second screen. Responding with speed to your audience in real time through relevant social channels is a perfect way for brands to reach millions of consumers personally and emotionally on smartphones, computers and tablets during big cultural moments.

4. Fish where the fish are. When targeting your Millennial audience, it’s important to find where they are spending their time online and how these trends change over time. With 16.6 million Millennial users on Twitter and 65 million on Facebook, the convergence of mobile and social has become a way of life for brands to connect with this overly stimulated and hyperconnected generation.

5. Leverage real-time data. Marketers have two valuable tools:historical data, the evidence behind what this younger generation cares about, and real-time data, which is pouring in by the second. Raw numbers from “likes,” “comments” and “retweets” give brand marketers the ability to evaluate information by the second. By leveraging both, they can find their place in the conversation and create culturally relevant moments.

Social marketers must seize the opportunity to plan for big moments as well as be in the moment to connect with the tech-savvy generation. If brands are prepared, invested and socially filled with impact, they can move their younger audience toward real engagement in real time.